How Did This Happen to Me? Top 10 Ways to Get Spyware or Viruses on Your Computer

If you use the internet, you have probably been infected with a virus, trojan or spyware. According to the SANS Internet Storm Center, the average unprotected PC is infected within 20 minutes of normal internet usage. Many people want to know what they did to get infected. Unfortunately, usually it was just one wrong click.

Here are the top reasons people get infected and how to prevent these common internet security threats.

10. Exchanging files in chat rooms.

You should never download files from sources you don’t trust. Viruses and other internet security threats can look like valid files or photos. Always scan files with a virus scanner before opening them.

9. Clicking on popup ads.

If you’re like most people, you probably don’t like popup ads. But whether you like them or not, you should never click on them. Popup ads can take you to a website that secretly downloads adware onto your computer. Enabling a popup blocker on your computer can help protect you. Some popups come from adware programs that have downloaded onto your computer, so if you still see popups after installing a popup blocker, scan your computer for spyware or adware.

8. Email attachments.

Viruses can be sent out as email attachments to infect your computer if you open them. If you download your email into an email program, scan all email attachments with a virus scanner. Most major webmail programs scan attachments before you download them, but you should still not download files from unknown sources. “Phishing” email, claiming to be from your bank or other financial institution which asks you to provide personal information or download something to your computer is another common email threat.

7. Instant messaging.

Because people are cautious with email attachments, new viruses are spreading through instant messaging programs. Infections look like valid files or photos, so always be careful accepting file transfers, even from sources you trust.

6. Downloading music.

Many websites that advertise free music downloads are loaded with spyware. You can even get spyware from these websites without manually starting a download. Other sites make you accept a spyware download to get the music you want.

5. Browsing websites.

Some websites use “drive-by downloads” – misleading dialogue boxes to secretly install spyware programs. Sometimes spyware can install even if you do not choose “yes” or “accept”. Keep your browser security settings on default to protect yourself against these infections.

4. Installing free programs or screen savers.

Check the license agreement of any program you install to confirm it does not come bundled with other programs. License agreements are supposed to explain if the software you are downloading will cause advertisements or other downloads. These programs may have long or confusing license agreements where they have buried this information. Always carefully read what you agree to before you download free software.

3. Adult-related websites.

Many of these sites make a profit by forcing viewers to download spyware and adware to access their site. You may not be able to view these sites if you are using a secure browser or have your security settings too high.

2. P2P programs like Kazaa or Limewire.

If you share music using peer-to-peer networks, you may be forced to download advertising software onto your computer. This software can generate popups from within your computer. In these cases, you may see popups even if you are not online.

1. Gaming websites.

It may seem that viewing spoilers for online games will let you win faster, but it can slow down your computer with spyware. Mick Lathrop, part of StopSign’s Spyware Research team says, “I get most of my spyware samples from gaming-related websites.” Avoid any site that requires a software download to access information.

Even if you have an anti-virus product on your computer, confirm that it protects against the growing threat of spyware. Enable a popup blocker and firewall for further protection. Using safe browsing habits and good security software can keep you safe on the internet.

Dirty Little Computer Viruses and How To Protect Yourself

Whether you have learned your lesson from a past experience
with a nasty computer virus or have been pressing your luck
by surfing the web and downloading various files or opening
those email messages sent to you by people you don’t know
without any real understanding of just how vulnerable you
really are each time you log onto your computer you now have
the opportunity to discover what steps you can take to avoid
such an annoying and many times destructive infestation.

Listed below are some of the guidelines you can follow in
order to keep those nasty viruses from making a mess out of
your computer and your life.

•Purchase and install a well respected antivirus software
program and be sure to set it up so that it automatically
runs when the computer starts up each time.

•Make sure to keep your antivirus software up to date by
either using the automatic update feature that many come
with or make it a habit to manually check at least once or
twice a week for updates on your own.

•Set your antivirus program to scan for potential viruses
each time you open a word-processing document like the ones
that get sent through email. Viruses found in
word-processing documents are called Macro Viruses.

•When purchasing software make sure to only buy from
vendors that are well known and from ones you trust.

•Resist swapping data with the use of floppy disks or other
mobile storage devices between various computers. If
exchanging programs between computers is unavoidable just
make sure to scan the storage device(s) for viruses before
transferring data from one computer to the next.

•If using floppy disks to transfer data make sure to format
them before using them for the first time.

•Never use pirated software. This is both illegal and a
very good way to invite an unwanted computer virus.

•When downloading software from the internet do so as
little as possible. There are many neat programs available
on the internet, but unfortunately there are many viruses
that go along with them also.

•If you must download programs from the internet ALWAYS
scan them for viruses BEFORE opening them up to install on
your computer.

•Probably the most important and neglected method of
disaster recovery are periodic backups of all important
files found on your computer. Should a virus happen to get
through your lines of defense you may need to replace the
virus corrupted files with fresh ones that have been kept
for such an occasion.

Finally, it is not guaranteed that if you follow the above
steps that you will not be the victim of a computer virus,
but you can sure bet that if followed you will greatly
reduce the chance of being an unsuspecting recipient of such
an unwanted program.

A New Era of Computer Security

Computer security for most can be described in 2 words, firewall and antivirus.

Until recently could one install a firewall and an antivirus program and feel quite secure. The risk of something “bad” succeeding with infecting your computer or a hacker to breach your firewall was not likely.

This as internet was filled with computer completely without protection. Easier to attack or infect the completely open computer then fight all installed counter measurements. The viruses spread quickly and if you had protection, you where protected.

The new era has come.

But look around. Read about all new versions of spam control software, software firewalls, antivirus software and similar products.

Of course are they still a good protection against all the normal threats on internet, but the new main focus is the protection they offer against new threats.

Yes, they actually all try to come up with more and more cleaver ways of protecting you from threats not even present!

And how can they do this?

The answer is quite simple.

Most attacks and viruses use variations of known methods to attack or infect. And the new technologies that are being invented all search for “how things are done” instead of “exactly this or that”.

How to find viruses.

The old way, a known virus can be found by using a signature, a known piece of code inside.

The new way, now they look for known actions certain viruses use to accomplish an infection or spreading.

How to recognize an attack.

The old way. Someone connecting to your computer in any way at all (stop them).

The new way, someone connecting via this protocol, to this port, more then 3 times per second and so on.

A couple of examples.

Norton Antivirus 2005 ™ has, Internet Worm Protection. Panda Antivirus ™ has, Trueprevent.

Other companies will follow and this will expand into other areas like firewalls and spam protection.

What’s in it for you?

New protection will catch more virus, more attacks but they will most probably require more configuration from your side as well as a better understanding of how they work. And as always, a more complex system is more likely to give you problems.

So here you are, probably a bit more secure and with a bit more technical problems.

Dialing Up a Scam: Avoiding the Auto-Dialer Virus

For many, the daily walk to the mailbox evokes mixed feelings: The glee that your favorite monthly magazine – or a friend’s hand-written letter (quite a surprise in the e-mail age) may be waiting is countered by anxiety of how many bills the postman left you.

Now, imagine coming across your phone bill, thicker and heavier than normal. When you open it, instead of “statement stuffers” from the phone company’s marketing department, the bill is dozens of pages long ending in a one-month total of almost $5,400.

A quick glance at the details reveals hundreds of calls to the same 1-900 number. “A mistake,” you insist. After all, you're the only person in the house and you have never called a 900 number before. Actually, this is no mistake. In this true story, the homeowner had fallen victim to one of the oldest computer scams around: the "Auto-Dialer" virus.

How Did This Computer Security Nightmare Begin
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What is an “auto-dialer”? Some time ago, the phone companies came up with a feature that allowed merchants to reach a broader range of customers by allowing consumers to make payments via your phone bill. If you did not have a credit card, you just dialed a 900 number, connected by voice or modem (for Internet sites). Every minute you used the service, you were charged a fee ranging from $1 to $5 or more per minute. At month’s end, the charge appeared on the phone bill. Many services were legit: Consumers called weather, horoscope and gambling services offering this feature. But many merchants sold expensive phone or online adult content.

How Did An Auto-Dialer Get Installed
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But how did $5,400 in charges end up on the person’s phone bill? Although many of these services require the user to physically dial the number or connect to the online site by instructing the modem to dial the number, this can happen without the user’s knowledge. In the above case, the person’s computer was infected with an auto-dialer virus. Somewhere during his Web travels, he connected to a site that popped up a rather confusing message instructing him to "Hit OK" to make the message go away. What this person didn't know was he was agreeing to download,install, and execute an adult content auto-dialer.

Behind the scene, the auto-dialer installed itself, checked for the presence of a modem and dial tone, and then proceeded to dial an overseas 900 number over and over again. Even though the person surfed using an always-on broadband Internet connection, the modem remained so he could send and receive faxes. One problem: When he wasn’t using the modem, it remained plugged into the phone jack. Why should he have unplugged it? It's not like it could hurt anything, right? Wrong.

How To Protect Yourself
-----------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately, there is no single solution to avoid these types of malicious acts. A short list of protective measures would include:

1) If you no longer need a modem in your computer, remove it. Or at least disconnect the phone line from the modem;

2) Install anti-virus software such as Trend Micro or Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus. Many are designed to prevent this kind of malicious software, or “Malware.” More importantly, make sure your subscription for new virus patterns is current and configured to automatically download and install updates;

3) Install and regularly run Adware protection solutions such as LavaSoft's Ad-Aware or SpyBot Search & Destroy;

4) And do not, under any circumstances, blindly hit “OK” to pop-ups or similar annoyances without first making sure what you are agreeing to.

This tale is not fiction; in fact, it happens frequently, to businesses and consumers, kids and adults. But even the least savvy among us can thwart such an attack. A neighborhood teenager recently avoided potentially thousands in fees when an auto-dialer was downloaded and installed. How? She had unplugged the modem.

Internet Security Basics 101

The explosive growth of the Internet has meant that thousands of people are today experiencing the joys of being online for the first time. With growth there always comes pain. Be it your growing pains as a child or the growth and development of this part of our culture called the Internet.

Firstly we need to quickly explain what the Internet is and where it came from. The Internet is the offspring of a military project called Arpanet. Arpanet was designed to provide reliable communication during global nuclear war. A vast network of interconnected computers was set up all over the world to allow the various branches of US and NATO forces to communicate with each other.

Nuclear war never came (thankfully) and the world was left with a massive network of computers all connected together with nothing to do. Colleges and universities started to use these computers for sharing research internationally. From there it grew and spread outside colleges to local homes and businesses. The World Wide Web was born and its father was a guy called Tim Berners Lee.

When you're connected to the Internet you're sharing a vast network with hundreds of millions of other users. This shared network provides resources that 15 years ago were never thought possible. Unfortunately when something is shared its open to abuse. On the Internet this abuse comes from hackers and virus creators. Their sole intent is to cause chaos and/or harm to your computer system and millions of other computer systems all over the world.

How do you combat this? You need an Internet security system. This might sound complicated but your Internet security system will be quite straigtforward being comprised of just 2 - 3 Internet security products. We'll look at each of these products in more detail now:

AntiVirus Software

The first and most critical element of your Internet security system is antivirus software. If you don't have up-to-date antivirus software on your PC you're asking for trouble. 300 new viruses appear each month and if you're not constantly protecting your system against this threat your computer will become infected with at least one virus - it's only a matter of time.

Antivirus software scans your PC for signatures of a virus. A virus signature is the unique part of that virus. It can be a a file name, how the virus behaves or the size of the virus file itself. Good antivirus software will find viruses that haven't yet infected your PC and eliminate the ones that have.

Antivirus software can only protect your computer from viruses trying to infect it via email, CD-Rom, floppy disk, Word documents or other types of computer files. Antivirus software alone will not keep your computer 100% safe. You also need to use firewall software.

Firewall Software

The use of firewall software by home computer users is a relatively new occurence. All Internet connections are a two way process. Data must be sent and received by your computer. This data is sent through something called ports. These are not physical things rather aspects of the way your computer communicates online.

Firewall software watches these ports to make sure that only safe communication is happening between your computer and other computers online. If it sees something dangerous happening it blocks that port on your computer to make sure your computer stays safe from the person who is trying to hack into your system.

An easier way to understand a firewall would be to picture your computer as an apartment complex. At the front door of this complex there is a security guard. Every person who enters the complex must pass this security guard. If the security guard recognizes the person entering as a resident he allows them to pass without saying anything. If, however, the person entering the complex is unknown to him then he will stop that person and ask for identification. If they have no business being at the apartment complex he escorts them from the building.

If you are not currently using firewall software your computer will get hacked into - that's a guarantee.

PopUp Blocker

You can get a good popup blocker at no cost. An easy way to do this is to install either the Google or Yahoo toolbar. Both of these come with popup blockers built in. Popups are not necessarily dangerous but are a nuisance and using either of these toolbars will make your life that bit easier.

A simple rule for practicing online security is: "If in doubt then don't". If you don't recognize the file, the email address, the website or if your gut feeling says "no" then don't click that button.

Protecting Your Pc Against Viruses

Viruses have been the scurge of computer users for many years now. Over the years, the viruses have become more sophisticated and sinister. With the amount of sensitive financial information we store on our computers in this day and age, it is imperative that we have a strategy to protect our PC and data from the multitude of viruses out there.

There are a number of good free anti-virus software programs available to download on the internet. Just goto your favourite search engine and type in 'free anti virus software' and find a good program you can download and install on your PC. When looking at all the available options, you want to make sure the software has the ability to automatically download and install the latest virus signature files. This will ensure that you are always protected against the newest threats out there.

If you have a broadband connection, and therefore your PC is always connected to the internet, you will want to make sure you have a robust firewall installed. This will protect your PC against direct malicious attacks. There is the possibility that your OC could be used as a bot (or part of a robot army network of PSs) and used for malicious attacks on other OCs and businesses. Go back to your favourite search engine and type in 'free firewall software' and download a program and install it. These programs take a while to 'learn' which sites to trust, so you will need to be patient and guide your software while it learns.

Last, but not least, you will want to install anti-spyware software. Some virus programs have this feature, or have this software come bundled with it. Make sure you have it installed and run it regularly to pick up other threats such as spyware and adware.

Protecting Your Pc Against Viruses

Viruses have been the scurge of computer users for many years now. Over the years, the viruses have become more sophisticated and sinister. With the amount of sensitive financial information we store on our computers in this day and age, it is imperative that we have a strategy to protect our PC and data from the multitude of viruses out there.

There are a number of good free anti-virus software programs available to download on the internet. Just goto your favourite search engine and type in 'free anti virus software' and find a good program you can download and install on your PC. When looking at all the available options, you want to make sure the software has the ability to automatically download and install the latest virus signature files. This will ensure that you are always protected against the newest threats out there.

If you have a broadband connection, and therefore your PC is always connected to the internet, you will want to make sure you have a robust firewall installed. This will protect your PC against direct malicious attacks. There is the possibility that your OC could be used as a bot (or part of a robot army network of PSs) and used for malicious attacks on other OCs and businesses. Go back to your favourite search engine and type in 'free firewall software' and download a program and install it. These programs take a while to 'learn' which sites to trust, so you will need to be patient and guide your software while it learns.

Last, but not least, you will want to install anti-spyware software. Some virus programs have this feature, or have this software come bundled with it. Make sure you have it installed and run it regularly to pick up other threats such as spyware and adware.

Protecting Your Pc Against Viruses

Viruses have been the scurge of computer users for many years now. Over the years, the viruses have become more sophisticated and sinister. With the amount of sensitive financial information we store on our computers in this day and age, it is imperative that we have a strategy to protect our PC and data from the multitude of viruses out there.

There are a number of good free anti-virus software programs available to download on the internet. Just goto your favourite search engine and type in 'free anti virus software' and find a good program you can download and install on your PC. When looking at all the available options, you want to make sure the software has the ability to automatically download and install the latest virus signature files. This will ensure that you are always protected against the newest threats out there.

If you have a broadband connection, and therefore your PC is always connected to the internet, you will want to make sure you have a robust firewall installed. This will protect your PC against direct malicious attacks. There is the possibility that your OC could be used as a bot (or part of a robot army network of PSs) and used for malicious attacks on other OCs and businesses. Go back to your favourite search engine and type in 'free firewall software' and download a program and install it. These programs take a while to 'learn' which sites to trust, so you will need to be patient and guide your software while it learns.

Last, but not least, you will want to install anti-spyware software. Some virus programs have this feature, or have this software come bundled with it. Make sure you have it installed and run it regularly to pick up other threats such as spyware and adware.

Dirty Little Computer Viruses and How To Protect Yourself

Whether you have learned your lesson from a past experience with a nasty computer virus or have been pressing your luck by surfing the web and downloading various files or opening those email messages sent to you by people you don’t know without any real understanding of just how vulnerable you really are each time you log onto your computer you now have the opportunity to discover what steps you can take to avoid such an annoying and many times destructive infestation.

Listed below are some of the guidelines you can follow in order to keep those nasty viruses from making a mess out of your computer and your life.

•Purchase and install a well respected antivirus software program and be sure to set it up so that it automatically runs when the computer starts up each time.

•Make sure to keep your antivirus software up to date by either using the automatic update feature that many come with or make it a habit to manually check at least once or twice a week for updates on your own.

•Set your antivirus program to scan for potential viruses each time you open a word-processing document like the ones that get sent through email. Viruses found in word-processing documents are called Macro Viruses.

•When purchasing software make sure to only buy from vendors that are well known and from ones you trust.

•Resist swapping data with the use of floppy disks or other mobile storage devices between various computers. If exchanging programs between computers is unavoidable just make sure to scan the storage device(s) for viruses before transferring data from one computer to the next.

•If using floppy disks to transfer data make sure to format them before using them for the first time.

•Never use pirated software. This is both illegal and a very good way to invite an unwanted computer virus.

•When downloading software from the internet do so as little as possible. There are many neat programs available on the internet, but unfortunately there are many viruses that go along with them also.

•If you must download programs from the internet ALWAYS scan them for viruses BEFORE opening them up to install on your computer.

•Probably the most important and neglected method of disaster recovery are periodic backups of all important files found on your computer. Should a virus happen to get through your lines of defense you may need to replace the virus corrupted files with fresh ones that have been kept for such an occasion.

Finally, it is not guaranteed that if you follow the above steps that you will not be the victim of a computer virus, but you can sure bet that if followed you will greatly reduce the chance of being an unsuspecting recipient of such an unwanted program.